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Unification

Hellyer was a square peg in a round hole.  Strange, but his opinions on Health Care made more sense than those that were adopted.  He differed with (leadership rival) Walter Gordon on the basic philosophy of the system.  He believed Gordon's plan of the gov't paying for everything was inflationary and non-sustainable.  He thought the gov't should be there after you have done your bit for yourself - not immediately.  Gordon told Pearson that Hellyer's ideas were not politically sound.  Pearson backed Gordon.

And here we are.

Tom
 
I intended to opt out of this post, because frankly, I have heard all the points of view before, but
I can add some information which hopefully is pertinent. My family came to Nova Scotia fom Ireland in
1819 - a book was written about my mother's family, "The Williams Family - A Family of Sea Captains"
but they were more than that, strict Roman Catholics, they were founders of the Liberal Party. They
also fought in all the wars, and served with distinction in the Volunteer Reserve of the RCN (RCNVR
the Wavy Navy) in WWII. Several were decorated for hunting elusive German submarines. So I have
a political and military perspective of "unification". In the Liberal Party, not really a democratic bastion
Helyer and Lee were considered fools - when I mentioned to my father that Helyer wanted to be
Leader and PM, he just laughed. Donald MacDonald was another non-entity, elected on Truudeau's
coat tails - if you mentioned the CF to MacDonald his eyes glazed over. But Trudeau was not an
enemy of the military, his view of the CF was totally pragmatic (he was trained by Jesuits after all)
but could not be convinced that a large. expensive military was sensible, in a counrty whose GNP
and annual birth rate continued to fall. But my father, and his friends, with their DSC's OBE's, MBE's
Atlantic Stars and scars, never forgave or accepted Naval officers who accepted "unification" they
were in good company with Admiral Harry DeWolf RCN, High Pullen RCN and many others, who fought
the U-Boats, point blank on the North Atlantic. No one could ever convince us that "unification"
was a positive decision made to ensure a more effective and "gentle" military (what ever that is).
MacLeod
 
Sorry MacLeod but you are wrong.   Trudeau despised the military and the people in it.   He took few pains to disguise the fact.   â ?Pierre Trudeau viewed soldiers as unintelligent thugs. Likewise, his perception of the major powers was distorted: he saw the USSR and US as moral equivalents. His belief that Canada could find a new way in foreign and defence policy led to European-based Canadian military reductions in NATO.â ? and â ? â Å“Trudeau had a low opinion of the military which he believed to be populated by robots trained to kill . . . the generals and their soldiers were dolts, frittering away their time and the government's money.â ? (Jack Granatstein, Who Killed that Canadian Military? Toronto, 2004) â ?Trudeau was too much of a pacifist and a leftist for the Americans, some of whom considered him little more than a communist. He did nothing to change this perception when he said, during a visit to the Soviet Union in 1971, that the overwhelming American presence posed "a danger to our national identity from a cultural, economic and perhaps even military point of view." â Å“ (Government of Canada, DFAIT, Canada and the World: A History)   "Why would a guy as smart as you waste his time in the military?"   (Pierre Trudeau to Bill Lee (see above) (then Liberal Party fo Canada campaign organizer) in 1968)  

He was a well educated man but an intellectual light weight.   He was, I think, afraid to test his education in the larger world so he returned to Québec and contented himself with vilifying Dupessis, â Å“international capitalism and Quebec clericalism.â ?   He argued that â ?the civic and electoral immorality of the French Canadians, their propensity for authoritarianism, the antidemocratic theses that they learn in the colleges, the childish structures within which they debate at university, the small place occupied by the laity within the Quebec church, the low level positions they occupy in the authoritarian structures of capitalism, their fear to use the state, the only instrument capable to pull them from their plight, the lack of concern manifested by most for violations of freedom of speech, of the press or of association, all of these constitute characteristics of a people that has not learned as yet to govern itself, of a people where democracy cannot be taken for granted.â ?   (La théorie du roi nègre, Claude Bélanger, Montreal, 1999) Heady stuff, I suppose, but all sound and fury and based, almost entirely, on his own pedigreed, puffed up pomposity.   His deep disregard for his fellow citizens provided too much fuel for the separatist fires.   Trudeau, as much as Lévesque, is the godfather of the Parti Québecois.

I am quite confident in my, personal, judgment that Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a weak man â “ he played the daredevil â “ to disguise his own knowledge that the sum of the man was far less than the parts,   Many admire him; he was a man of great charisma but small character â “ a poltroon, as I have said before.


 
Actually, I am not wrong. One of our cousins was the "desk" for the Atlantic Region in the PMO.
Senator Keith Davey and former Liberal Party President, Norman MacLeod of Toronto were very
close to the political Pierre E. Trudeau, and Trudeau was often, in those days, the topic of the
day - there is no question, the Right Honorable P.E.Trudeau was no lightweight intellectual,
and his opinion of the military as quoted by Granatstein is nonsense. As far as Trudeau commenting
to Lee, you must be kidding - he would not talk to Lee at all, much less comment on "Lee being
smart" - Lee was not smart, and Granatstein has traded on his preception that Trudeau destroyed
the military for years. The problem was, that the then PM was focused on other areas; the economy
the continuing falling GNP, the mediocre leadership in the Nixon Government, and the real threat of
Premier Rene Levesque, ( a really smart guy, every bit Trudeau's equal, and a threat to unity). And
then there are the Generals and Admirals, most scared shitless of Trudeau - none had the ability
or the intestinal fortitude to confront him - but Trudeau realized that a significant military contribution
to NATO and the defence of Europe was a continuing (but hopefully from his perspective) a declining
neccessity for Canada's economic presence in Europe and the UK. It was a personal intervention by
Trudeau that generated the decision by DND CF to buy the McDonnell-Douglas-Northrop F18A -
I know, I was there. The New Fighter Aircraft Program (NFAP) was up until the MHP the largest
single military acquisition in dollar value. Trudeau did not hesitate to order DM Barnett Danson and
Project Manager General Paul Manson to buy the airplane, hardly the act of a politician who was
against the military.  Met Trudeau many times, campaigned with him, Davey and Norm MacLeod in
Toronto - the Canadian public rate him, to this day, very highly, which is what really counts. MacLeod
 
jmacleod said:
Actually, I am not wrong. One of our cousins was the "desk" for the Atlantic Region in the PMO.
Senator Keith Davey and former Liberal Party President, Norman MacLeod of Toronto were very
close to the political Pierre E. Trudeau ...

Your opinions, and those of your cousins, are noted and the appropriate values are attached to each.


 
jmacleod said:
- the Canadian public rate him, to this day, very highly, which is what really counts.

This reference to Trudeau may be the crux of the current problems with the Canadian Military.   In the 1970's, it was not Trudeau who wanted to replace the Centurion Tanks.   They were going to end their life cycles with no replacements.   It was prepressureom our NATO Allies that brought about the purchase of the Leopard tanks that we eventually got.   They were purchased to meet our NATO commitment, not to replace one for one our fleet of CentCenturionsn effect, we saw the beginnings of the current trend of replacing equipment with half of what we had before.   128 Leopards replaced over 350 Centurion tanks.   You may notice the trend today, in the fact that those 128 Leopards are to be replaced by sixty odd MGS.   The same is witnessed in any Military replacement program to date;   2 1/2 Ton to MLVW, LSVW, Jeeps to Iltis to G-Wagen, ...........Trudeau and the Liberal Party have not been 'friends of the military'.

Oh! And I was there.  
 
From my reading of Bland, the Leopards came about because JADEX had the stones to go right to Trudeau (skipping the DND) and say it flat out that we needed them and he would not lose them on his watch.
 
I also seem to recall "a walk in the snow" between the German Chancellor and Trudeau during which Canada's commitment to keeping the Brigade operational were "discussed".  The Leos followed soon after - in minimal numbers.  If I recall my history correctly (yes, I'm too young to remember - even at nearly 40, sorry guys!), we were looking at Scorpions to replace the Centurion...eek!

BTW, as an aside, jmacleod:  Trudeau might well be popular with Canadians in Ontario, but he's still reviled by many (most?) here in the West.  To me, he's the epitome of the Eastern Canadian intellectual clique that has so dramatically altered Canada and Canadian political life.  I know I rolled my eyes at the "national hero" talk that accompanied his funeral, along with the concurrent attempts to re-name Mt Logan in his honour.
 
Well, a lot of people and politicians are reviled in Alberta, including Stephen Harper and Ralph
Kline, but nobody cares. In the Canadian military Messes of forty years ago, talk focused on
politics was strictly forbidden - it was a closed shop mentality, which cost the Military dearly,
because most of the senior officers were generally unaware of what they were dealing with
in the "politcal arena". I agree that there was no real empathy or understanding of the Military
from the politicians of the era, except those like Barnett Danson and George Hees, and others
who had served in World War II. But today, because every military decision has significant political
emphasis and economic consequences, the top officers in the CF are very much on top of the
political situation, particulary since the roughshod way the Army was treated over an isolated
incident in Somalia. In the military of forty years ago, if EMail existed, a high profile, articulate
Forum like this would have been discouraged to say the least. MacLeod
 
Teddy Ruxpin said:
I also seem to recall "a walk in the snow" between the German Chancellor and Trudeau during which Canada's commitment to keeping the Brigade operational were "discussed".   The Leos followed soon after - in minimal numbers.   If I recall my history correctly (yes, I'm too young to remember - even at nearly 40, sorry guys!), we were looking at Scorpions to replace the Centurion...eek!

It was, I think, a complicated time.

Trudeau was busy, in the late '60s and throughout the 70s, playing his childish, pacifist and anti-capitalist role which, as others have pointed out, went down and still goes down very well amongst many, many Canadians.

Trudeau, who had little knowledge and less skill in economic and trade matters was off on his disastrous third option scheme â “ through which he hoped to persuade Canadian businessmen that they should sell to buy from a remote, highly protectionist, expensive market rather than the big, free, easy one close to home: a policy of absolutely monumental stupidity which still attracts favourable comment from the economic illiterate today.

Trudeau had just (Oct '68) cut Canada's commitment to NATO (Europe) in half â “ a commitment with real, nuclear tipped military value and even greater symbolic value to, especially, the Dutch and Germans.  He delivered a kick in the slats to Europe with his left foot and then shoved his right foot in saying, â Å“Hey, Europe: Buy more and more of our products!â ?  It took a special kind of stupidity to do all that.  He really, really was out of his intellectual depth whenever he had to deal with grownups.

Anyway, he and Helmut Schmidt were personal and philosophic friends â “ socialist, anti-nationalist one-worlders and that sort of thing.  Schmidt is reputed to have told Trudeau, quite bluntly, (See: Canada, NATO and the Bomb (1988)) â Å“No tanks, no trade.â ?  He didn't mean just any tanks, either: Trudeau came home from the famous (early '70s) walk in the garden and ordered the procurement of German Leopard tanks despite the fact that he, personally, had avowed: â Å“No tanks in Canada.â ?

We got the tanks but not the trade: Schmidt may have been Trudeau's friend but Valerie Giscard d'Estang was calling the shots in Europe and Canada â “ along with the rest of the world â “ was shut out.  Things may, almost certainly would have been different had we bought 350 French tanks and 250 French airplanes, but ...

(One of the reasons we went the Cougar/Grizzly >>> LAV III/Stryker route, I think, was that the minister and DM of the day interpreted Trudeau's statement, in the House of Commons, to be an absolute prohibition: No tanks, period.  The Direct Five Support vehicle programme was in full swing when I was in the operational requirements staff in the mid '70s.  While the UK Scorpion and the American Stingray light tanks were popular amongst some armoured officers (including folks like Jimmy Fox and Jack Dangerfield?)  who wanted to keep, at least, a 'training tank' which might, also, be useful in low intensity operations â “ my, personal, recollection is that the programme was aimed squarely and exclusively at wheeled vehicles â “ tank = tracks, therefore no tanks = no tracks, not even light ones.)

Off topic: I was, still am, fascinated with the idea of 'light' forces with air-transportable tanks.  I remain convinces that the proper role of armour is to let the infantry do the heavy lifting and then dash through the gap and shoot up the enemy's cook-houses and supply depots.  A few tanks, even light tanks, clanking about on the low or mid intensity battlefield can have the sort of shock effect which wheeled mobile gun systems will never, in my personal opinion, achieve.


 
jmacleod said:
Well, a lot of people and politicians are reviled in Alberta, including Stephen Harper and Ralph
Kline, but nobody cares.

Seeing how Ralph Klein has been elected 4 times in a row and Stephen Harper is an MP from that province, I can't see how the revulsion can be that extreme.

Edward Campbell said:
Trudeau, who had little knowledge and less skill in economic and trade matters was off on his disastrous third option scheme â “ through which he hoped to persuade Canadian businessmen that they should sell to buy from a remote, highly protectionist, expensive market rather than the big, free, easy one close to home: a policy of absolutely monumental stupidity which still attracts favourable comment from the economic illiterate today.

Ahh...the "Great Pirouette"; I remember learning about that one in a Foreign Policy class.
 
Kiline and Harper are constantly being "put down" by many Western Canada newspapers, most notably
the Sun Group, which most reader's think are "conservative", but in fact are not. Fact is, no one
in Central or the Atlantic region cares if Kline got elected four times, and Harper, unfortunately is
on his way to a new life. Sun newspapers have done a lot of harm to the small "c" conservative cause.
Trudeau was a graduate of the London School of Economics and a student of Dr. Harold Laski, which
colored his view of international economics. The real pressure on Canada during the period referred
was to maintain a presence in NATO, which resulted in several threats to Canadian economic trade
-to this day, try to buy Canadian butter in Europe. DeGaulle had withdrawn from NATO, which cost
the other members many dollars and unanticipated committments - at home, the Canadian economy
except for central Ontario was not exactly briming over with success. So, money was the real factor
in the concept of "unification" which was, in my opinion, an absolute diaster - the concept had no
redeeming qualities. Just a point, for an interesting point of view of armoured tactics, History channel
has been offering various aspects of the IDF in the various wars with Syria, Egypt, Jordan etc. General
Sharon appears to have known a lot about the tactical application of tanks. MacLeod
 
jmacleod said:
Kiline and Harper are constantly being "put down" by many Western Canada newspapers, most notably
the Sun Group, which most reader's think are "conservative", but in fact are not. Fact is, no one
in Central or the Atlantic region cares if Kline got elected four times, and Harper, unfortunately is
on his way to a new life.
I still don't get it ... maybe you should come out here for a little while and see how "reviled" they are (methinks you might have been a little mislead by the Central and Eastern Canadian media).


Trudeau was a graduate of the London School of Economics and a student of Dr. Harold Laski, which
colored his view of international economics.
Is your point that he lacked the capacity for independent critical thought?
 
Edward Campbell said:
I remain convinced that the proper role of armour is to let the infantry do the heavy lifting and then dash through the gap and shoot up the enemy's cook-houses and supply depots.

You've got my vote!  I'll need an HLVW to follow for the plunder.  I wouldn't feel quite right, however, about shooting up a cookhouse.  Cooks are some of my favourite people in the field and some of the enemy ones might be very good.  Never shoot up a chance at fresh rations.

Sorry.  ;)

I've actually gained some interesting perspectives here.  I've read some books that touched on unification, but can anyone here recommend a good, balanced book that lays out the history without too much baggage?  Its hard to know where we're going when we don't know where we've been.  Unification strikes me as a massive self-inflicted wound, but I'm basing that more on intuition than knowledge.


Cheers,

Iain
 
I'm curious - are you intentionally spelling Ralph Klein's name wrong?
 
But why all the commands hq were spred all over the country (MF in St-Hubert, Air command in Winnipeg and so on) instead of ONE big NDHQ in Ottawa as it is now?
 
Black Watch said:
But why all the commands hq were spred all over the country (MF in St-Hubert, Air command in Winnipeg and so on) instead of ONE big NDHQ in Ottawa as it is now?
The initial structure was grafted on to the existing RCAF.

Four of the RCAF commands: Air Defence Command, Air Transport Command, Air Materiel Command and Air Training Command just morphed into their new (then) forms in their (then) current locations.  Mobile Command and Maritime Command were brand new but MARCOM looked suspiciously like the old Atlantic Fleet HQ with the Pacific Fleet 'under command'.

It made good organizational sense, when you stop and think about it: it limited the turmoil in a period when there was way, way too much.
 
jmacleod said:
Just a point, for an interesting point of view of armoured tactics, History channel
has been offering various aspects of the IDF in the various wars with Syria, Egypt, Jordan etc. General
Sharon appears to have known a lot about the tactical application of tanks. MacLeod

One wonders if you are one of those "stream of consciousness" conversationalists. You have a way of digressing, however I'll bite:

I'll have to see what History Lite is offering, but I disagree. Sharon was a dangerous fellow that believed(s) his own myth, and became progressivly more dangerous with higher commands. In '73 he stood on the brink of launching a sizeable chunk of the IDF's armour into oblivion through his arrogance and disdain of the Egyptians.

I'll grant that he seems to have changed his tune. Maybe finally getting the top job he lusted after since the founding of the Likud he can finally see what needs to be done - undoing most of his own policies of the '70s and '80s.

Acorn
 
DND HQ will announce today a "new command structure" featuring a Central Command based
in Ottawa headed by CDS and six national command headquarters - General Hillier's plan, which
has a definative link, perish the thought, to unification. What a clever idea. Sorry about the spelling
of Premier Ralph Kleins name, but it is so rarely publized in the east of Canada that I thought it
was the same as a long established clothing store in Halifax NS. now long gone, well know to the
Haligonians of the period 1940's. The Hillier plan is inevitable, but it is doubtful that the monies
promised by the Minority government for DND will be readily forthcoming, because of other committments, based on the NDP Agenda. Hillier is also going to be compelled to look after
house keeping, continuous upgrades of run down military bases, and a hard examination of the
Canadian Forces Housing Agency - welfare of the troops should be his first priority. MacLeod
 
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